Saturday, December 24, 2016

Art Connoisseurs, Patrons, and the Sammy Olagbaju legacy

In Nigeria art patronage is still a developing culture. A number of factors of course go to inform the flowering of this culture or the lack of it for that matter. Thus in history of art, art patronage refers to the support and encouragement that was provided to people in the arts such as painters, sculptors, musicians, etc, by kings, popes and wealthy individuals in society. But art appreciation generally is still in its infancy in our clime as it were.

Sammy Olagbaju in a gallery

Friday, June 17, 2016

Jelili Atiku and the struggle in Ejigbo

By Molara Wood
The Netherlands Embassy in Lagos opened its doors to members of the Nigerian arts community recently for a celebration of one of their own, an artist under siege, in an event designed to send a message, that he is not alone. Anyone seeing performance artist Jelili Atiku on Friday, April 8, 2016, would have done a double take. He was resplendent in flowing, sunshine-yellow agbada traditional attire, topped with an abeti-aja (dog-eared) cap.
(L-R) Netherlands Ambassador John Groffen, Jelili Atiku and Fariba Derakhshani of Prince Claus Fund

Friday, January 29, 2016

Uche Okeke, Uli Art Movement and the Legacy of Beautiful Lines

And the legend finally comes to an end; Professor Uche Okeke - the great master and pioneer finally goes home to his maker leaving the ‘sensitive lines’ with us. As the originator of Ulism, the great son of Okeke worked the lines to frenzy as he ‘doodled’ his way right from the formative days in the 1950s, to the lofty heights we behold of him and his rich legacies. It was in the 1950s when as a student in the fine art department of the Nigerian College of Arts, Science, and Technology (which later became the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria) that his modernist tendencies shone clearly whiles he experimented with the motifs and philosophies of his native Igbo folklore.

Uche Okeke (1933 - 2015). Photo: Shelley Kusnetz

All in Your Eyes